


Retirement

by rinskiroo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Family, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Wishful Thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 16:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinskiroo/pseuds/rinskiroo
Summary: The life of an agent is well behind him.  He'd like to keep it there.  Retirement is nice, but it's missing something.





	Retirement

**Author's Note:**

> This was I believe from the October 2017 "Uncanny SWTOR Prompts" on Tumblr?? And now it's here.

There were far too many voices in his mind.  Awake, asleep, it didn’t matter.  If it wasn’t his own thoughts rebelling against his actions, it was Ardun Kothe and Hunter saying that damnable word, or Watcher X babbling nonsense.  Only the Force knew how that wretched man still managed to infect his thoughts.  He was tired, oh so tired.

“Would you stop rolling around.  You’re hogging all the blankets,”  came the sleepy mumblings of a very familiar voice.  It was not a voice he had expected to hear—not on his ship and certainly not in his bed.

Ruest squinted in the darkened room, his head turning slightly to his left to see the grey, bald head turn and burrow into the pillow.  He was about to say something—shake her, push her off the mattress.  Yell at her and ask what in all the nine hells she was thinking crawling into his bed.  His mouth was open, ready to  strike, when an arm draped across his middle.

He glanced back over at Kaliyo, still snuggled facing away from him.  It was not her arm.

“ _What the f—_ ”  he whispered hoarsely to himself as his head turned the other direction.

Raina Temple, with her flawless skin and soft curls, squeezed her arm around him and cuddled in close to his side.

This was… this was definitely not happening.  He closed his eyes and wiped his hands over his face.  The tumultuous romp with Kaliyo had been over ages ago.  Once he’d woken up to just how untrustworthy she was, he’d put a stop to it.  And Raina—

His fingers still pressed into his eyes as he tried to think and place what time it was.  Not just hour or day, but year.  The thing with Raina had been after the op with the SIS.  So if that was over and done with as well, why was his mind still trying to fight against the conditioning?

He pulled his hands away from his face and cautiously glanced from side to side.  As he suspected, his ex-lovers had both disappeared from his bed.  With a long exhale, Ruest kicked his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.  He went through his greatly abbreviated morning routine of a few light exercises, brushing his teeth, and a shower.  As he got farther and father away from his time in Intelligence, many of his old habits had fallen by the wayside.  He only managed a quarter of his usual push-ups and sit-ups before it was just too much effort.  Sometimes, he took a run down the beach, but if he was being honest, it was a brisk walk back and forth and then laying out on the hammock.

His hand rubbed over his stomach as he looked at himself in the mirror with steam along the edges.  He shrugged slightly, not really missing the defined abs all that much.  He liked retirement, and the fresh seafood on his island getaway.  And he _really_ enjoyed the pastry shop that was a quick hop into the nearby, small, tourist-infested town.  As he ran a hand over the untended bear on his face, he had a thought about shaving, but nah.  Maybe next week.  He pushed a comb twice through his red hair and tossed it back onto the sink before leaving the ‘fresher to find some clean clothes.

There was a muted thumping somewhere—probably just birds flying into the side of the ship.  Stupid gulls.  If there was one thing he did keep up with, it was the maintenance and cleanliness of the sleek old bird.  He might not have had much else—no job, no crew, no family, but at least he had her.

He walked out of his quarters, datapad in hand to look up the latest news.  Not intelligence briefings, or galactic politics.  He couldn’t give a toss about any of that.  He needed sports scores, who won Dromund Kaas’ Next Top Model, and time tables for some choice waves.

“Hey, Toovee, remind me to pick up some shampoo next time I’m in town,”  Ruest said as he walked towards the kitchen.  When there was no response, he looked up form the datapad and glanced into the different rooms.  “Toovee?  Blasted droid.  Always underfoot, but never when you need it.”

The thumping outside sounded again, a bit louder this time, but it was overridden by a strange humming coming from the kitchen.

When stepped into the galley and saw where the humming noise was coming from, his breath and heart stopped.  She was standing barefooted at the small stove wearing a loose, floral dress—far too cheerful for the black and grey ship.  Her dark hair was tied loosely at her neck, somehow longer than he had remembered.  He watched in silence for just a second as she pushed the eggs and bacon around in the pan until the pad came tumbling out of his fingers and hit the floor.

“How many of those are you going to break this week, Ru?”  she scolded him in a light, amused tone.  She didn’t turn around to look at him, just continued her cooking.

She hadn’t called him Cipher or Agent, and not even by his name—a nickname.  An affectionate, and intimate, designation.  If his heart ever managed to start beating again, he was sure it would burst.

“Shara,”  he barely breathed out her name.  Not Watcher Two, or Keeper, but Shara, _his_ Shara.

“I thought you were going to sleep all day.”  She turned finally, smiling at him.  No longer the very serious cog in the Empire’s intelligence bureaucracy, but happy, free, just a woman.  “You’ve gotten lazy.  And fat.”

Ruest smiled at her teasing, warm and familiar.  “It’s your fault,”  he said, finally finding his voice as he walked closer towards her.  “You keep cooking me all this fattening food and dragging me out to cafes for dessert.”

He didn’t care if the memories spilling into his mind were fake or real.  He wanted to absorb them, keep them, treasure them always.  After he and the former Minister had rescued her, gotten her medical treatment, and a safe place to stay…  Yes, he’d gone and helped his former masters and their new allies with their ghost problem, of which he’d been graciously compensated, but after that, he hadn’t left her side.  She had wanted him to stay, wanted to join him in his new life where no one was controlling them.

He pushed the ponytail over her shoulder and kissed the back of her neck.  His arms wrapped around her waist, rubbing her swollen stomach.  Yes, he remembered this, too.  The thing he’d been fighting for his whole life.  He could never go back to the family he had before the Empire had taken him—his Republic soldier father or his pirate queen sister.  But this new family, safely tucked away on the Outer Rim world where no one knew they were spies with pasts overflowing with death and deceit.  He could have this.  They could have it.  Together.

Shara turned off the heat and moved the pan to the counter before turning around and wrapping her arms around his neck.  When she kissed him, it felt like the first time all over again.

“You carry on like this,”  she warned.  “Your breakfast will be cold.”

“I don’t give a damn about breakfast,”  he practically growled as he nipped at her lips again.  He didn’t miss when her smile gave way to a wince.  “Is my boy giving you a hard time?”

Shara laughed and nodded as Ruest dropped down to his knees and rested his cheek on her large, pregnant belly.  “I keep telling him to come out any time he wants.”

“Soon,”  he whispered to the occupant.  “I have to warn you though, I’m _very good_ at hide and seek.  I won’t go easy on you.”

“Yes, you will,”  Shara chuckled and combed her fingers through his hair.

“Yes, I will.  Always listen to your mother.”

_Please, let me keep this,_ he prayed silently.  To the Force—light or dark, it didn’t matter.  He’d do anything they asked to trade his lonely existence on this little island for this life.  He squeezed his arms around her, holding her close and their son between them.

The strange dream that had stirred him awake forgotten now, along with all the other lovers in his past.  All the ones before Shara, there was always something wrong—something he couldn’t get past.  He had tried to change them, but realized he couldn’t, he shouldn’t.  He needed to find find that perfect person who was already right in front of him.  He gazed up at her, glowing even in the artificial lighting of the ship.  She was perfect, in every way.

“Ruest.”  She sighed, her hands continuing to brush through his hair and across the hairs on his face.  “There’s something outside the ship.”

“No, darling,”  he said with a shake of his head.  Though it was getting louder, more insistent.  He could hear it more clearly.  Already breaking through his consciousness.

“It’s time to wake up.”

She was perfect.  In every way, but one.

 

 

“Usually, when someone doesn’t answer the door, they want the visitor to _go away,_ ”  Ruest grumbled after the door slid open revealing the rather annoyed looking woman.  He blinked in the sunlight and stretched obnoxiously wide until his dirty t-shirt lifted up over his stomach.  He scratched at the pouch hanging just over the waistband of his shorts and sucked noisily on his teeth.

“No wonder you live out here alone,”  Lana Beniko delivered in her usual cutting tone.

Truth be told, he could have gone his entire life never seeing the Sith again and it still wouldn’t have been long enough.  To have her show up here at his very much off the grid hideaway, it must have been big.  And none of his business.  He absolutely did not give two shits about whatever her problem was.  Not that he wasn’t curious _what_ exactly it was.

“How did you even find me?”

“I was Minister of Sith Intelligence, if you recall.”

“I mean, you only reminded me of it every other sentence.  Not sure how I forgot that.”

She was getting even more frustrated and annoyed.  Good.

“Someone calling themselves the ‘Red Blade’ got horrendously drunk at a pork roast last week.”

Ruest frowned and scratched at his beard.  “I was wondering where all those tiki torches came from…”

“Cipher—”

“Yeah, you call me that again, I’m going to shoot you, _Minister_.”

The frustration seemed to break somewhat as she let out an exasperated sigh before the corner of her lips curled up slightly.  They were both using titles neither one of them had anymore.  Still practicing the moves of an old dance long after the song had ended.  “I’m putting together a resistance.  To fight against Arcann.”

He really should have figured that’s why she was here.  Lana was idealistic that way.  Some people saw it as pragmatism, but Ruest recognized that desire to make the galaxy better.  Even if the view was from the stifling rigidity of the Empire.  “Don’t you already have a spy in your pocket?”

She didn’t deny it right away, which was the obvious tell.  She didn’t flinch or look embarrassed that she was again working with the SIS agent.  She just watched him, as if she were studying his reactions just as much as he was studying her.  “Agent Shan is working on a very specialized task.  It’s going to be a large operation with a lot of moving parts.  I need someone who can see the big picture.  And you’ve cultivated a very different list of contacts.”

“Playing both sides again?”

“Whatever it takes.”

Ruest stared past her to the waves lapping up at the shore.  Arcann was a vicious, foreign tyrant.  Somehow, the fact that he was from out beyond Wild Space and here exerting his will over their galaxy made him even worse than the Sith.  At least he could count on the Sith to eat each other.  Didn’t have to worry about one particular tyrant for too long.

“Lana—”

She frowned as he addressed her so informally.

“—look at this place.  It’s paradise.  Why would I leave?  I don’t want your resistance.  I don’t want your war.  I’m retired.”  He lifted his hand up in a mock half-salute and turned away from her, back into his ship.

“I’ve discovered I’m very good at finding people, Ruest Botau.  Perhaps there’s someone you’re missing?”

If he hadn’t had that dream—she could have been talking about anyone.  She could have meant his parents and sister, whom he had found on his own after leaving Dromund Kaas.  She could have meant his crew that had left him after he decided sipping vodka from the bottle on the beach was a much better use of his talents.  Sometimes, the galaxy worked in strange ways—sometimes, things weren’t just coincidence.

He tried to keep his face even, like what she said hadn’t effected him.  Like it wasn’t the switch that would make him do anything she asked.  Not exactly a code word, but functionally the same.  He could be that agent again, just for a little while.  “All right.  Where do we start?”

“I’d suggest the gym.  But I’ll send you some leads I’ve been working for you to check out.”


End file.
